Forrester study: What challenges do organisations face when obtaining contract signatures?

Forrester Research - electronic signing of contracts and agreements

Using technology to create a seamless electronic signing process is often one of the first digital solutions organisations might undertake. Organisations who haven’t yet embraced an e-signature solution might experience many challenges in the contract process. The Forrester State of Systems of Agreement study 2020, commissioned by Forrester on behalf of DocuSign, highlights some of the problems organisations face in the approval and signing stage of the contract lifecycle. It also reports on the business benefits organisations experience when they automate the eSignature process.

What challenges do organisations face when obtaining contract signatures?

Forrester conducted an online survey of 954 global technology purchasing decision-makers. Many of those that responded said that they were experiencing challenges in the agreement process within their current organisations. 

• 56% said they often had a lack of visibility into the status of their current agreements which could include new business contracts or employee contracts.
• 48% said there were delays in their contract signing process due to errors or missing information.
• 41% indicated that the experience for customers was poor because of challenges in the agreement process.
• 41% said they experienced delays in both routing and obtaining signatures in the correct order.
• 38% said they have concerns over the legality of electronic signatures.
• Only 35% of respondents said that their process for verifying the identity of contract signers was highly efficient. And only 24% of respondents indicated that their process for getting agreements signed was highly efficient. 

How are organisations overcoming challenges in the agreement signing process?

Implementing e-signature is a critical component of any digital transformation strategy. The use of e-signature is becoming standard practice now, with respondents reporting that 68% of contracts signed within their department used electronic signatures. However, many are only using the technology in certain departments rather than across the entire organisation. They need to consider rolling this out across different workflows for full signature automation. 49% said they could send agreements for signature directly from a CRM system.

DocuSign Agreement Cloud products that help you automate the contract signing process

DocuSign eSignature is the world’s number one electronic signature solution as part of the DocuSign Agreement Cloud. 55% of respondents stated their customer experiences improved when they implemented a digital agreement process. 

DocuSign Identify allows organisations to integrate the signing and identity process by including automated ID checks into one connected experience. DocuSign ID Verification enables a signer’s government-issued ID, or European eID to be verified automatically on any device for faster, easier and more secure agreements.

Continuous changes to data protection regulation means that it’s even more vital for organisations to capture consent to terms and conditions. DocuSign Click allows organisations to manage consent and acceptance of terms and conditions, quickly reducing time to agreement and minimising legal risk. It has been designed to help teams embed standardised clickwrap agreements like terms and conditions and privacy policies into a website, portal or app. 

To help you understand and visualise how DocuSign solutions are used throughout the agreement process, from preparing, signing, acting on, and managing agreements, you can look at how Tally, a company that operates green co-working spaces in cities worldwide, leverages DocuSign in order to do business better, faster and greener.  

In the video below you can see how Tally leverages DocuSign to digitise the signature of the newly generated agreement. Tally also uses DocuSign solutions to digitally verify the signer’s identity and capture consent to its T&Cs. 

Understand and visualise how DocuSign solutions are used throughout the agreement process by understanding how Tally prepare, sign, act on and manage their agreements.